


conversations from a couch (haven’t felt the same)

by lizwillstealyourgirl



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Birthday, Christmas, Explicit Language, F/M, Falling In Love, First Time, Fluff, Halloween, Healthy Relationships, I think?, Implied Sexual Content, Michelle Jones-centric, Not Canon Compliant, Slice of Life, Time Skips, Valentine's Day, it’s just petermj in senior year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-28 04:51:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20772833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizwillstealyourgirl/pseuds/lizwillstealyourgirl
Summary: Michelle blinks, and all she sees is Peter, the shittiest liar she’s ever fucking met, ever fucking fallen in love with, and she can’t help but think,Holy shit. What if he’d died today?[or: michelle is falling in love, and she can’t even pretend to be mad about it]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [when i remember i have you, nothing else matters to me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20717033) by [lostnfound14](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostnfound14/pseuds/lostnfound14). 

> ok im editing the a/n's because they're... long. im a talkative person idk.
> 
> so a large majority of the descriptions, wording, etc was inspired by the fic tagged! the format (being chronological but not like.... on Long Story and rather multiple snippets/days in the lives) was inspired by [this reddie fic!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20567234/chapters/48823931)
> 
> this is NOT canon compliant!!!!!!! AT ALL!! check the end notes for more details on that/some mini spoilers! i did tag a bunch of characters but pls note the only ACTUAL ones are pretty much mj, peter, and kind of may/ned/tony/lil bit of the acadeca team. it's also all in michelle's perspective!
> 
> ok sooo pls enjoy 15k words of literal bullshit! i really have no idea what i was on writing this :)

**secret keeping**

Michelle knows, better than anyone, what a well kept secret looks like. Peter’s is not one.

If Peter had planned out his secret keeping just a little bit better, he probably never would’ve been caught, even if Michelle did pride herself on her sleuthing abilities. Really, Peter wasn’t someone Michelle would’ve suspected if everything else didn’t line up perfectly. (Not so perfectly that it was suspicious, but just enough that if Michelle didn’t believe it, she probably would’ve been stupid.)

It started with the fact that he wasn’t there during Washington. Actually, that was probably the most obvious one of all time; how the hell could Spider-Man, a superhero/vigilante from Queens, have showed up to save an Academic Decathlon team — one of the many located in Queens — from their impending doom, almost 300 miles from home? And the whole time, Peter was mysteriously missing? It lined up too well, and it honestly drove Michelle insane with the knowledge that no one else on the team fucking knew it. (Except, for obvious reasons, Ned.)

Then, there was the time he skipped out on Homecoming and suddenly, Spider-Man took a plane down and got Liz Allen’s dad arrested.

There were all the little moments too. Peter skipped class when the ferry got fucked up and haphazardly stitched back together by Spider-Man and Iron Man respectively. Sometimes, he would miss an Academic Decathlon practice and that night, Michelle would check the news to find a video clip of Spider-Man swinging around some person and/or thing who proceeded to get stuck in his webs. It went on for a couple of months before the world went to shit.

And_ then _ , in the hours leading to the dusting — The Snap, people call it — Peter was nowhere to be seen. Ned told Michelle that Peter said he had an emergency at home or something, but that was _ incredibly _ suspicious given the fact that Mr. Harrington hadn’t known where Peter was either. But the next thing that happened was everyone turning into dust, so it didn’t matter much. It couldn’t. Michelle was dusted too.

After they all came back — that’s The Blip, apparently Hulk snapped and everyone returned — Peter wasn’t missing as often. He was still Spider-Man, Michelle knew it by the bruises scattered along his skin that always seemed to land in the _ exact _ place Spider-Man was punched from the news the night before - but something had changed. He wasn’t cutting class or skipping school functions. He showed up to _ every _ Academic Decathlon meeting and actually stayed for all of Homecoming that year. He even went to one of the _ football _ games — she found out about it through Ned’s Instagram story — even though Friday’s have pretty high crime rates. (Also, Friday’s are the most likely day of the week to declare war, because American politicians like to present unpopular bills or policies at 4 or 5 PM on a Friday. Michelle wouldn’t say that’s directly related to the topic at hand, but she likes knowing things.)

Peter, over and over again, failed to keep things hidden. But the final straw was when their whole entire class went to Europe — fucking _ Europe _ — and the literal Spider-Man himself was _ there _ , in Venice, just like Spider-Man was at the Washington Monument with their Academic Decathlon. Even worse, Spider-Man was wearing some random fucking mask and a blue flannel that looked suspiciously like Peter’s, and again, Peter Parker was nowhere to be fucking seen. Michelle doesn’t _ know _ know — she’s like, 67% sure; maybe even 73%, if she’s feeling confident in herself — but also, Michelle kind of knows.

He’s also a really bad liar. Case in point: Michelle directly asks him where he was, and what does Peter say?

“Um, I got lost.”

Michelle wants to rip his hair out before ripping out her own. _ Sure _ , she wants to shout. _ Sure you did, Spider-Man. How the fuck are you a superhero if you suck at lying _ ** _so_ ** _ much? _

Instead of calling him out on his literal _ bullshit _ lie, she says, “They were worried about you.” _ They _. Not her. Why would she be worried about him? He’s Spider-Man, he survived D.C., he survived Homecoming, he even survived the literal end of the world (in a way that no normal person had, only the Avengers and apparently Peter too), so Peter would survive some overglorified water types.

That knowledge never stops the twist in her stomach when thinking about Peter Parker, her dorky, scrawny 16 year old classmate, trying to save the world while she is just curled up under some fucking table for protection.

“I’m not ready for this trip to be over yet,” he says, and _ fuck yeah _. Michelle wants whatever he’ll give her. Even if he’s Spider-Man. Especially if he’s Spider-Man. (Not especially because it’s something she thinks is like - whatever - but because she knows there’s some fucked up monsters roaming Europe right now and finds comfort in the fact that Peter, at least in part, beat them more than once.)

_ I know you’re Spider-Man _ , she wants to say, but decides she’ll save it for later. For dramatic effect. Even if she’s known since before Homecoming, maybe even before the Washington Monument, maybe all the way back when Peter started coming to school wearing bruises and blinding smiles. It’s crazy to think that’s how long she’s been paying attention to him. She tells herself it’s just because she’s observant, likes books, and he’s horrendously easy to read, but there’s a piece inside of her that’s twisting and screaming that maybe that’s a _ little _ bit of a lie.

**necklace breaking**

Michelle should’ve kissed him on Charles Bridge. She panicked, because of course she did, and told him about knowing he’s Spider-Man and also, for some reason, about what Susan Yang told her. (Sometimes, Michelle lets herself be a teenager. Susan and her were biology partners for a while, and Susan figured out pretty quickly that Michelle thought Peter was cute, and forced her to come over for a gossip session disguised as a study date. There, Susan admitted that she thought Peter was a male escort, because he was always disappearing all the time, and she was mostly joking but Michelle kind of wanted to mention it if only to make Peter squeak.)

(It worked. He squeaked.)

But now they’re here. Different bridge, different circumstances, different fucking country, and the same stupid feelings. This time, though, as Michelle is walking up to him — well, _ running _, because she really thought for a while that he wasn’t going - you know — she can see Peter is limping, covered in dirt and half-dried blood that’s crusting around the cuts on his cheek and chin. He’s wearing his suit, no mask, which is somehow beautiful and heartbreaking all at once. When she throws her arms around him, his hands go to the center of her back, and his fingers twist around the fabric of her jacket like she would float away if he didn’t hold on tight enough.

Then, Peter manages to look just as pretty on this bridge as he did on the other one — there, under the yellowish lights from the building behind them, his eyes glittered and his cheeks flushed pink in the cold and the way he smiled at Michelle drove her insane — and Michelle is so _ sure _ Peter (or maybe Michelle, actually) will cry if he keeps looking at her that way. When he laughs, it’s half-assed and he’s looking down at his mask, so Michelle pulls out the necklace Happy gave her.

“Anyway, uh, there was this - sweaty guy - at the tower with us. I think he, like, works for you or something?” She pulls out the broken charm and holds it in her hand, palm up and necklace on display. “He gave me this,” she says, voice barely above a whisper.

And Peter sounds fucking _ broken _ when he croaks out, “No!”

“Oh, MJ, I’m so sorry. I had this plan — this stupid plan — and I wrote it all down and-”

Michelle checks out. She blinks, and all she sees is Peter, the shittiest liar she’s ever fucking met, ever fucking fallen in love with, and she can’t help but think, _ Holy shit. What if he’d died today? _

If he had died, Michelle wouldn’t have survived. He saved her life, he risked everything to save her life and all of fucking Europe’s. If Peter had _ died _ , as in _ dead forever gone never coming back heart stopped body slowly rotting _ kind of died, she never would’ve gotten the chance to tell him about the spoon she got for him as a joke because she knew it was Ned trying to cover something up for Peter, or how she followed Tony Stark on Instagram because sometimes he posted about internships and Peter without saying his name, or about the time she went to a football game just because she knew Peter was there and wanted to get the chance to see him and when they snuck out of the game to sit in the library and read it was the best fucking time of her life, or-

Michelle blinks, and all she sees is Peter, like she always does, so she thinks: _ Huh. I think I should kiss him. _

So she does.

**late night snacking**

Michelle’s never had a boyfriend before.

Peter wasn’t her first kiss — yes, she’s aware of how surprising that is — but he _ was _her first boyfriend. Is. He’s her boyfriend.

That’s really nice to say, Michelle thinks, even if she will _ never _ admit it out loud.

But he’s her _ first _ boyfriend, so she doesn’t really know the procedure for — well, any of it. Is she _ supposed _ to tell her parents? When they’re alone, just the two of them and no adults or friends or anything, are they supposed to make out? Get frisky? _ Have sex? _ Michelle has kissed all of three people, she doesn’t know how the _ fuck _ to have _ actual fucking sex _ , and she knows damn well Peter doesn’t either, so she doesn’t know why she’s worried but she _ absolutely _ knows why she’s worried.

When they’re hanging out, things feel so easy. Any nerves she felt on her way to him fade away the second he puts his hand on her elbow and presses a kiss to the apple of her cheek. They’re playful together, funny and cute and simple, and even though that feels like enough for _ Michelle, _ she’s always afraid it’s not enough for Peter.

The angrier, feminist part of her reminds her _ constantly _ that if Peter pressures her to any extent, she is fully capable of cutting his dick off and sending pictures of it to all the other assholes at school. The _ louder _ part of her is so much more afraid, though, so even _ if _she’s totally rational and careful and whatever, she’s still scared shitless.

It’s past midnight when her phone rings. She sets it on Do Not Disturb at night, but leaves the ringer on so if her mom or some other loved one (Peter, her older sister, Ned, and her younger brother) call, she still sees it.

It’s Peter. She knows it by the ringtone. He set it a few weeks ago to _ their song _ , which is so gross and cheesy but she still actually likes the song — _ Banana Bread _ by _ Cavetown _ , because Peter is a hipster piece of shit — so she kept it. He doesn’t usually call, so Michelle feels like she _ has _ to answer — it _ must _ be important.

“Hey,” she says, quiet so she doesn’t wake up her sister in the room next door. Her house has thin walls.

He disregards any greeting and instead opts for, “I miss you.”

She laughs. Michelle and Peter hung out today. He walked her to the summer class she’s taking, like he always does — because he’s a _ gentleman _, he insists, and chivalrous and cheesy as fuck — and they got lunch. He couldn’t miss her, she thinks, maybe a little bitter. He must just be horny.

“That’s your dick talking,” she scolds, hoping the burn in her throat doesn’t make its way into her voice.

Peter scoffs. “No, it’s my _ heart _ , MJ. I haven’t seen my girlfriend in, like, 8 hours, or something crazy. I _ miss _you.”

Michelle is 90% sure this a fever dream. Maybe even 95%. But she goes with it, either she’ll wake up or it’ll be real and whatever happens is just going to happen. “So, what? You just wanted to call and tell me that? Why are you even awake, you have work tomorrow at 8.”

“And you have class at 7:30,” Peter responds pointedly. “And, no, I had a — well, you should probably sleep. I’ll let you go to sleep.”

Michelle stops, a little taken aback. He sounds _ nervous. _ Peter’s always a little _ nervous _ around her, because he’s awkward and dumb and stuff, but this is a different kind of nervous. “Wait, no! Tell me,” she insists.

He sighs, breath shaky and faraway. “Are you — are you doing anything right now?”

Between quiet laughter, she tells him, “At 12:30 in the morning? No, loser, I’m watching YouTube videos.”

Michelle can hear the grin in his voice when he asks, “Can I come over?”

“We are not having sex for the first time on a Thursday night because you’re bored and don’t want to sleep.”

Peter laughs, a little offended and shocked and taken aback. “No!” he exclaims, a whispered hiss. “No, I wanna take you out. There’s this 24 hour ice cream place I go to when I can’t sleep, and I just — I wanted to know if you wanna come with.”

They go on dates all the time. They go to ice cream all the time, even. Peter is lactose intolerant and gives little to no fucks, and will honestly do anything to eat dairy just to throw a middle finger to his pre-mutated genetics, which couldn’t automatically heal his stomachaches. But they’ve never been to ice cream in the middle of the night, and Peter has never asked her to go to something this — personal.

This is where Peter goes when he can’t sleep. When he has nightmares or insomnia or anxiety or whatever. This is his safe place. And he wants Michelle, his grumpy, asshole girlfriend, to come with?

“You want me to sneak out in the middle of the night for a 24 hour ice cream shop?”

“Yes,” Peter responds, exasperated and insistent. “If you want to,” he tacks on at the end, because he always asks for her consent, even if it’s through the awkward wave of his hands instead of words.

“I do,” she says, before she even thinks about it.

She imagines the grin he has. It’s probably bright, even blinding, and Michelle wonders if he’s got any lights on in his room or if he’s smiling into the darkness, only illuminated by the screen of his phone pressed to his ear.

“Good,” he responds, and then laughs high-pitched like he’s nervous, “because I’m — I’m outside your window right now.”

Michelle scoffs out a laugh, flabbergasted and halfway humorless. Then, she pauses, and sits up in her bed. “Deadass?” she asks, turning her head, and out her window is Spider-Man, mask still on, waving at her.

“Yeah,” he whispers in the sort of way that has Michelle’s stomach twisting.

She pulls herself out of bed, pretending to ignore how her volleyball shorts scrunched up while under the covers. She’s genuinely very grateful she slept in more than just the thin t-shirt she usually chooses, but still throws a sweatshirt on. There’s a very large part of her that does _ not _want Peter to see her nipples and consequently get a boner.

Michelle slides the window open and leans out, hanging up the call on her way over. “Hey,” she tells him, hiding her nervousness behind a deadpan voice and stony face.

He pulls his mask off and _ Lord Almighty, _ Michelle thinks, _ he’s so fucking cute. _His hair is a little bit screwed up and his eyebrows are all out of whack, but his eyes shine in the reflection of the streetlights from down below. “Hey,” he says, breathless and sounding just as nervous as Michelle feels. He smiles at her and Michelle thinks she could float away.

At the ice cream shop, Peter takes his mask off and puts a sweatshirt on. He stuffs his mask into the front pocket and brushes his gloved fingers against Michelle’s cold ones. She wonders if he can feel the electricity even through the bulletproof fabric of his suit.

Peter orders three scoops cotton candy and Kit Kats, because he’s disgusting. Michelle gets a Joe’s Caramel Monkey Crunch, which is an intricate milkshake/malt concoction made with caramel, chocolate, Oreos, bananas, and malt powder. Peter teases her endlessly for ordering something so fancy at 1:00 AM, but Michelle doesn’t really give a shit. (And for all the crap he gives her, he doesn’t seem to mind the taste when he starts kissing her only a few minutes later.)

When Peter drops her off at her house, he kisses her on the cheek, but Michelle wraps a hand around his jaw and pulls him in against her lips. He hums, puts a hand on her hip and squeezes. Just as Michelle starts twisting her fingers into his sweatshirt and pulling him in closer, pressing her body against his, Peter pulls away, a little breathless.

“It’s almost 2,” Peter tells her, close enough for his breath to bounce off Michelle’s face. It still smells like cotton candy. “You should get sleep. Sorry for keeping you out so late.”

Michelle shakes her head, tongue heavy and mind blank for a second. “It’s okay,” she finally chokes out. “I had fun.”

Peter smiles. Puts a hand on her head. Tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. Pulls her in close. Brushes his nose against hers. Presses a close-mouthed kiss on her lips. Tastes sweet.

Michelle falls in love a little further, and falls asleep quickly with the taste of him on her mind.

**snake protecting**

Flash got a snake.

Flash got a snake, and Michelle knows — _ knows _ — that holding it is a very, _ very _ bad idea.

And yet, Peter really thinks that Penny the boa constrictor is, for some fucking reason, super cool and not terrifying at all, so when Flash holds it out for Peter and Peter makes _ grabby hands _ at the fucking snake, Michelle knows — Michelle _ knows _ — that something _ must _ go wrong.

Peter slings her around his neck. Every time she turns her head towards his face, he squeals and starts saying, “Oh fuck no, _ fuck _ no, no,” and puts his hand between their faces. When it starts freaking him out too much, the snake curls up in his lap and starts slithering down his legs.

At one point, Penny yawns, and everyone in the room screams. “Her mouth is so big,” Ned gasps out between laughter.

Peter holds her out for Michelle, and she responds, “Oh _ fuck _ no. Do _ not _ let that thing near me.”

At some point, Peter hands the snake off to Abe, and Penny apparently wants to actually kill the guy, which only scares Michelle more. But she likes Peter, for some reason, so Abe hands her back to Peter and laughs when she curls up in his lap once more.

Michelle sits to Peter on the couch with one foot tucked underneath her butt. The other is under Peter’s thigh, and every time Penny starts inching towards Michelle, Peter lifts the snake’s head and turns it away while softly saying, “Oh, uh, Em, Penny’s coming for you.”

Michelle always squeaks, darts away in fear, until Peter puts a hand on her ankle and pulls it back under his thigh. Michelle pretends not to notice the burning feeling in the pit of her stomach, and is grateful Peter doesn’t comment on the blush spreading across her cheeks.

**birthday celebrating**

Michelle sucks at gifts.

This is something Michelle knows very well. She’s always known it. Gifts make her nervous. She isn’t good at presents, because gifts are how you show people you give a shit about them, and that’s one of those things Michelle is really, _ really _bad at. Usually, she gets purposefully bad/funny gifts so she can pass it all off as a joke. She doesn’t know how to do any of that lovey-dovey shit. She hates it.

So Michelle hates birthdays. She hates her own, and because she’s a self absorbed asshole, she hates everyone else’s too.

But Peter is turning 18. She hates that he’s older than her almost as much as she hates birthdays, but still — an 18th birthday. This is the only one Peter will get. Michelle knows it has to be good. It pisses her off and she wants to rip out her own hair but she will be _ damned _ if Peter’s 18th doesn’t rock.

Ned and her concoct a plan. They know Peter better than anyone else. They know he likes parties, but more for the getting-fucked-up-with-friends part than the drinking-and-dancing-with-strangers part. They know he smokes weed, he _ likes _ smoking weed, but doesn’t do it often because Tony is one of those parents with a sixth sense — it's the ‘ _ my child is doing something illegal and/or wrong _ ’ sense — and May would unleash the wrath of Thor on him. They know his lunch order, favorite ice cream flavor(s), which movies he watches depending on the mood he _ wants _ to feel — Michelle and Ned know him better than anyone else could possibly imagine. So they know exactly what he wants to do for his 18th birthday.

Flash is easy to convince. His house is big, and his parents are gone all the time, so he’s the most convenient, but he’s also just naturally on the right side of conceited, so he’s more than happy to invite everyone over and let Michelle and Ned have their way. They don’t do any stupid decorations, but Betty and Ned — who are back together again, unsurprisingly — set up a little picture spot on an empty wall of the living room, where the afternoon sun seeps into the house perfectly. Michelle has all of Peter’s favorite board games, and Flash has a Wii, a PS4, and a Netflix account, and Ned has Domino’s on speed dial, so they’re pretty much set.

It’s a surprise party, too, because Peter likes surprises. Michelle teases him for that, mostly because she can’t stand surprises, but it’s true; Peter likes trusting his friends and letting them do all the work. And just like Flash is easy to convince, Peter is easy to surprise; Ned, the only licensed driver of the three, picks up Michelle and then Peter, who doesn’t ask any questions. Well, he asks a lot, actually, but he doesn’t expect any of them to be answered.

When they park outside of Flash’s house, Peter recognizes. As dumb as he can be sometimes, he’s actually pretty observant, so he asks, “Why are we at Flash’s house?”

Michelle turns her head to glare at him. “Just shut up.” Her voice is as stone-cold as her eyes are, but Peter doesn’t even blink.

Peter swings the door open, now onto the surprise. Betty is recording as he laughs at his friends jumping out from their hiding spots scattered around Flash’s entryway. The others don’t know about Peter’s spidey-sense, only Michelle and Ned, which makes Michelle excited and proud in some weird way. Really, Peter wasn’t even onto them until they made it to Flash’s driveway, so that’s a win on their part, right?

Peter hugs Flash in thanks. Flash pushes Peter off, calls him _ Penis Parker _, but this time, they’re both just grinning at each other. They died 9 months ago, and they’re graduating in another. They don’t have time to hate each other.

Then, Peter hugs Ned, who laughs. They do their little handshake, and it’s cute but dorky in that way Peter has always been, so Michelle forgets to breathe for a second. The whole time, Peter’s smile doesn’t even waiver.

As soon as the two boys stick their finger guns at each other, Peter is spinning and pulling Michelle in close. She huffs out a breath in surprise, trying to pretend like she is unaffected by the assertion of his strength mixing with his pure, unbridled joy. He kisses her, passionate and chaste all at once, _ You mean everything to me _ and _ We’re in front of our friends right now _ at the same time. Michelle doesn’t mind for even a second.

Attending the party is the entire Academic Decathlon team and the other friends Peter managed to make during Junior Year: Round Two. (Just like with Flash and Peter, no one had the time or care to hate anyone anymore after The Snap/The Blip. There just wasn’t a point anymore.) Even Brad Davis shows up, since Peter and Brad stopped hating each other once Susan and Brad started talking to each other over the summer. Brad even apologized for the whole Bradchelle v. Spideychelle drama, as Ned calls it. There’s probably 15 people in addition to Peter, Ned and Michelle, so it’s a pretty full room, but it isn’t overwhelming or whatever. They play board games in teams — Cards Against Humanity, For The Girls, What Do You Meme? (Fresh Memes Addition), and Scattergories — and have a very intense, well organized Mario Kart competition that Peter does horrifyingly well in (he places second, much to Michelle’s chagrin).

Betty starts making people take photos at her set up during prime golden hour. Michelle doesn’t really do photos, so she’s happy to sit on the couch and watch Peter smiling with all the people he’s befriended, laughing at inside jokes and sparkling in the sunlight. Ned, Flash, Abe Brown and Peter are fucking around in some weird play-fight thing when he looks over at Michelle and catches her eye. It’s only a split second, but Peter’s grin softens into this adorable lovesick smile the very _ millisecond _ they make eye contact. The look on his face goes just as quickly as it’d come, Flash’s jab to Peter’s ribs cutting the moment short, but the feeling of warmth (and possibly love) in Michelle’s chest doesn’t fade.

“Michelle,” Peter calls, waving her over. She loves it when he says her name, _ Michelle, _ instead of MJ. She likes MJ too, but when Peter says _ Michelle _ , it’s like he’s saying _ I love you _, even if neither of them are brave enough to say that out loud yet.

She complies silently, slinking up to Peter’s outstretched arm. Michelle is a little bit taller than him still, but Peter tells her time and time again he likes her height, so rather than shrinking herself and tucking her body into his hold, she lets him wrap an arm around her waist. There’s a swooping feeling in her stomach when he stands on his toes to plant a kiss on her cheekbone.

“Thank you,” he whispers to her, and Michelle knows Betty is snapping _ so many fucking pictures _ right now, because that girl is obsessed with the heart eyes Peter and Michelle have for each other. “This is awesome. You’re awesome.”

Michelle smiles at him and pinches his bicep. “Yeah, I know,” she responds, nonchalant despite the blood rising to cheeks, coating her skin in a pinkish blush.

After a second, Ned shouts at them to smile at the camera instead of each other. Michelle flips him off while Peter kisses her on the lips, a little bit grosser than it was earlier that afternoon. Everyone groans, and Michelle doesn’t give a fuck.

Betty uses her polaroid camera too, and hands the still undeveloped photo to Peter. He stuffs it in his back pocket, and pulls it out later to show Michelle while they’re eating cake in the kitchen. “You keep it,” he says, voice soft. “I look stupid. It’s good blackmail.”

Peter does look a little dorky, but that’s what he always looks like. Michelle likes that about him anyway. She hangs it above her desk when she gets home, between a photo of Michelle’s family — with both her dad _ and _ her mom, for probably the last time ever — back when Noah was a newborn, and the Academic Decathlon team after they won a scrimmage last year. Peter stands next to her in that one too, though only their elbows touch.

(She gives him his gift once they’re all alone at her house. He likes to walk her home. It’s the sketchbook she once used to draw people in crisis, but slowly and unintentionally became one full of Peter. There’s him at detention, Homecoming, the AcaDeca meet, one of their practices, third period Chemistry, another one of their practices — it’s all Peter. She wouldn’t show her Peter doodles to anyone else, and she never thought it’d be _ Peter _ that got to see all of them, but somehow, it makes sense.

Michelle thinks that somehow, in every lifetime, alternate or otherwise, Peter will find a way to worm himself under her skin and into her heart. That’s cheesy, but Michelle doesn’t give a shit anymore.)

**decision making**

It’s mid-September, and they’re sat side by side, filling out college applications at the park outside of their favorite Starbucks, when suddenly, Peter asks, “Should we break up?”

Michelle freezes mid-application. She’s surprised, to say the least. She thought everything was really good. Throughout the summer, they were hanging out; they went to parties, hung out with mutual friends, stayed at Tony Stark’s freaking cabin for a weekend. Michelle even came over and had dinner with Peter and May — like, official _ hey mother figure this is my girlfriend _ dinner — and it went pretty fucking great. School started, and they’re still - you know - _ great _. Peter walks her to class in the morning, and the whole AcaDeca team eats lunch together but Peter always sits next to her and holds her hand underneath the cafeteria table.

Things _ are _ good. Michelle can’t be wrong. She makes Peter happy and she knows it. He makes her happy too. Why would he say something like that? Michelle isn’t the best with words though, so when she tries to respond all eloquent and well spoken, all she says is, “What the fuck?”

Peter huffs out a laugh, and Michelle pretends not to see how watery his eyes are becoming. “You know, w-we’re going to college. I really like MIT, and you really like Harvard, and that’s cool, but I also really like Columbia and if I stayed in New York, I wouldn’t want to make _ you _ stay too.”

Michelle falters. “Wait,” she says, still confused. She lifts her hands from her laptop and faces the palms towards Peter, effectively shutting him up. “You want to break up?”

“No,” Peter responds, exasperated, like Michelle was supposed to understand and he explained everything very well even though he actually made_ no sense. _ “No, I - I don’t _ want _ to break up. I’m just wondering if we should. Like, if we’re supposed to.”

Michelle rolls her eyes. “We’re not _ supposed _ to do anything, Peter. It’s _ our _ relationship. We have full autonomy over it and can do whatever the fuck we want.” She pauses, pushes her laptop away further and shifts so that she’s not just turned to look at him, but her whole body is facing him, open and vulnerable. “Is someone telling you we should break up? What’s this coming from?”

“No, just-” Peter sighs and cuts himself off. He starts again, “I was talking to Flash. He told me that he broke up with Brad. I asked why, ‘cause like, they really liked each other, I thought, and Flash told me he didn’t want to have to break up with him in June. He was like, _ It’s inevitable, you know? We’re going different places _. I’m scared that we - that it’s the same for us. Inevitable.”

Michelle doesn’t _ blame _ Flash, but there is a very large and loud and pissed off part of her that is calculating the best way to pummel the guy. “I-” The word comes out strangled. She doesn’t know what to say. She thinks she might cry, because she doesn’t want to break up with Peter, she’ll follow him anywhere he goes, she’s _ sure _ he would do the same — well, she _ was _, but now?

“I don’t want to break up,” she manages. She can feel letters bubbling up in the back of her throat, and she wants to let it all out, but she doesn’t know what she’ll say. She opens her mouth, and for once in her life, she’s brave, so everything she means comes tumbling, in three short words: “I love you.”

Peter startles. He blinks at her, eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlights of Michelle’s car and she, with her three short words, comes searing into him, crashing and burning in an instant. Michelle’s emotions feel like a tsunami, leaving broken hearts in their wake, tearing apart all the good things she has in her life. She wishes she could take it back, but nothing she could say — _ nothing _ — would make her un-feel it. So it doesn’t really matter, does it? She feels it. She loves Peter.

“Oh,” he says, a little dumbfounded, and Michelle could slap him. It’s okay if he doesn’t love her too. She has to be okay with that. But he could say something more than_ Oh _.

But then he continues. “Really? You — me?” Michelle huffs out a humorless laugh, and swipes angrily at the tears that are trickling down her cheeks.

“Yeah, asshole,” she responds, voice shaky and a little bit heartbroken. “You.”

Peter surges in for a kiss, brings her in close like he’s _ desperate _ for it, wraps an arm around her waist and pulls until she presses her stomach and chest against his. His lips move against hers, fiery and warm and full of love, and one of his hands creep to the back of her head to tangle in her hair. It’s passionate, but it isn’t sexual or horny or any of that; it’s just Peter. Here, the two of them, mouth-to-mouth, skin-to-skin, is just _ PeterMichellePeterMichelle _ , and nothing else in the entire world matters. For a second that is certainly more than just fleeting, Michelle doesn’t care about the application for Harvard that’s sat in front of her, or the one for Yale in the tab next to it, or the one for NYU that’s in a whole other window. She doesn’t care about the grade she got yesterday on her Spanish test — a B _ minus _ , because Senora Serrano hates her guts — and she doesn’t even think for a _ second _ about how grumpy her little brother was this morning. All she cares about is Peter, his warm hands atop of her cold skin, his firm stomach underneath her fingers, and his lips on hers.

Peter pulls away, after almost a full minute, and Michelle has to bite down a whine from the loss of touch. He’s still close enough that his breath is mixed with hers, and his eyes stay closed for a second longer than hers, so she gets to look at _ him _ , unguarded and — fuck — in love. He blinks, lashes fluttering and tickling Michelle’s cheeks. He backs up half an inch further and she watches in fascination as his warm brown eyes take a second to focus on hers. It feels like a scene in a movie, like in _ Moana _ when all the water is forming a circle around her and she’s staying dry, or in that one really bad movie she watched with Ned — _ Christian Mingle _ — when it’s raining outside but there’s a ray of sun that’s landing directly on the protagonist’s face. “I love you,” he whispers, and _ holy shit holy shit holy SHIT _-

“I don’t want to break up either,” Peter continues, shutting off Michelle’s brain entirely. “You’re amazing. You’re the coolest person ever. And my favorite human. And I really - I’m in love with you, Michelle, so in love with you. I only said it, ‘cause, like, I don’t want to tie you down. But if you - if I love you, and _ you _ love _ me _, what’s the point?”

“Yeah,” Michelle agrees, breathless and blind. She can barely hear with how loud is beating in her chest. “I love you,” she says again, just because she can. She’s allowed to say it now.

Peter beams so wide and bright that Michelle thinks, if it were the last thing she ever saw, she couldn’t be mad about it. “I love you too,” he tells her, and kisses her again, and Michelle has never felt so free in her entire life.

**trick or treating**

“We could be Mario and Luigi,” Peter offers, tossing the bouncy ball to the ceiling and catching it when it drops back down.

Michelle scoffs. “They’re brothers,” she responds and chews on the tip of her pencil. “What about Georgie and Pennywise?”

“We’re not _ clownfuckers _, Michelle,” Peter scolds with a laugh.

Michelle groans and sits up from her spot on the ground to look up at her boyfriend. “We can’t be siblings. We can’t be a toxic relationship. If it’s a classic ship, it’s super cheesy. If it’s too obscure, there’s no point.” She sighs, flops her head against the side of Peter’s mattress and stuffs her face into the duvet. Her voice is muffled when she says, “We should give up.”

Peter tangles a hand through her hair and detangles it gently. She hums under the contact, her shoulders drooping drastically in response. “We could ask Ned,” he suggests.

She picks her face up and drops her chin on the mattress instead. “He has such bad ideas. He and Betty are going as a plug and a socket. _ Betty is the plug _. It’s so bad. And I don’t think they get it.”

Peter laughs, pressing a kiss to her forehead. His hand wraps around the back of her head and holds them together for a second, keeping his lips on her skin for longer than strictly necessary (though it’s never long enough for Michelle). “Fine. What about Flash and that new guy? Or Brad and Susan Yang? Ooh — I bet Cindy and Zoha have a bunch of funny ones.”

Michelle groans, but surges upward to kiss Peter on the lips and climb next to him. She only pecks him, quickly, before dropping her head into his lap and sticking her hand out for him to hold. She’s needy, she knows it, and she doesn’t give a fuck. He laughs, but doesn’t complain, and tangles their fingers together. “Fine,” she says finally, eyes closed and body like putty in Peter’s hold. “You text Cindy and Zoha, I’ll text Susan. Flash told me he and the new guy — Zach — are going as shirtless Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

Peter giggles and passes Michelle her phone with his free hand. After he drops it on her chest, he pulls his out from his pocket and opens it up, clicking on Zoha’s contact. From her position, Michelle can see him type out, _ Hey Z!! MJ and I are totally stuck on our Halloween costume, LOL. Do you and Cindy have any ideas that you’re not doing? _ Michelle can also see Peter’s jawline, the tendons in his neck, the veins in his left forearm, his Adam’s apple, and she tries not to swoon.

When his eyes flicker to her and he sees she’s staring, he blushes. “Text Susan,” Peter instructs, voice soft, barely even a whisper — more of a breath. She complies anyway, lifting her phone off of her chest and — with an embarrassing amount of effort — pulls up Susan’s contact. Peter huffs out a laugh in seeing her struggle, and asks, “Want help?”

Michelle, in lieu of a response, sticks her phone in his face. He grabs it, giggling all the way, and types. No longer can Michelle see the screen, since Peter has shifted just slightly, but she doesn’t mind. She trusts him. She always has; she always will.

Later that night, Michelle is still at Peter’s house. She almost spends more time there than she does at her own home. May is so much nicer than Michelle’s dad. The three of them are on the couch in the living room with Chinese take-out boxes in their laps, feet propped on the coffee table, when Peter’s phone trills sharply.

“Who is it?” May asks, not unkindly.

Peter’s face flashes from neutral to ecstatic in the blink of an eye. He darts his head up to look at Michelle and says, smile unfaltering, “Zoha texted me a list.” Michelle giggles, a soft and girly sound she doesn’t let slip often, and plucks Peter’s phone out of his hand to look. It’s a screenshot of a Google Doc Zoha and Cindy had presumably made together.

* * *

  * _mr and mrs potato head_
  * _minnie and mickey_
  * _goofy and pluto (Possibly unintentional kinkiness?)_
  * _mike and sully_
  * _ariel and the dude (His name is Eric, Z)_
  * _arthur and the rabbit (You’re so bad at names? It’s BUSTER!!!)_
  * _cowboy and horse (Um? Also kinky?)_
  * _freddy and daphne (We’re lesbians)_
  * _VELMA AND DAPHNE (OK better)_
  * _winnie and tigger_
  * _winnie and piglet? lol u could be piglet cuz ur SHORT (Fuck off)_
  * _thing 1 and thing 2_
  * _ron and hermione_
  * _LUNA AND HERMIONE_
  * _L U N A A N D G I N N Y (Chill, babe) (never ?!?)_
  * _mike and eleven_
  * _max and eleven?!_

_  
_ _ Can we just do The Office one? Ron Swanson and breakfast? _

_ ugh. so lame but ok <3 _

* * *

Michelle laughs after reading them all. Peter’s head is propped up on her shoulder to look at the screen too, so he jiggles a little with the movement. “It’s long,” she notes.

Peter hums his agreement. “I like Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. Or Winnie and Tigger. Or the Mike and Sully. Or Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head. I don’t know — I like Disney.”

Michelle scoffs. “Of course you do,” she teases. “I like Ariel and _ ‘The Dude’ _. Or Ron and Hermione.”

“Do you want to be black Ariel in honor of the new movie?” He wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her in closer, turning his head so he’s looking at her and their noses are almost touching.

“Maybe so,” Michelle says, pressing a kiss to the corner of his lips.

May groans dramatically and kicks Peter with her socked foot. “Do _ The Little Mermaid _,” she instructs, “and stop being coupley on my couch.”

“It’s not your couch, it came with the apartment,” Peter snarks, but loosens his grip around Michelle’s waist and puts an inch or two more between them.

May reaches over to flick behind his ear. “And who pays for the apartment, mister?”

* * *

“I can’t believe you really did Ariel and Eric,” May says when they emerge from the hallway, now dressed in costume on Halloween night. (They changed separately, of course. Michelle took the bathroom and Peter took his own bedroom. They’re not there — _ yet _.) “Oh, you look so cute, honey,” she tells Michelle, pinching at the teenager’s cheek.

“Gee, thanks, May,” Peter quips.

May gives him a quick glance up-and-down and says, “You too, Peter,” in the most monotonous voice possible. “Okay, pose. Tony wants a picture and is pissed Pepper made him stay home to pass out candy.”

“He’s healing,” says Peter, as if he’s scolding Tony, who isn’t even there. “He can’t go trick or treating with Morgan, he’s not even finished with his physical therapy.”

“He missed last Halloween, too,” Michelle responds softly. “Can’t blame him for feeling — you know — left out.” She spins to look at May and says, “He should sneak out. Tell him I said he should sneak out. He can come partying with us.”

Peter smacks the soft flesh of her exposed waist. “He can absolutely _ not _ come partying with us. Flash would shit his pants if I came to his house with fucking Tony Stark.”

“He could wear the suit for his costume,” Michelle continues, unfazed. May laughs and waves her hand at the two of them, gesturing for them to move closer and raising her phone camera up.

“Look cute,” May instructs. “It’s for Facebook.”

Peter giggles and says, “You’re such a mom,” and Michelle pretends the pang in her chest at the thought of her mom taking photos of the two of them on Halloween doesn’t happen at all. As if Peter can feel it, as if he already knows, the arm he wraps around her waist tightens and he presses a quick but firm kiss to her temple, standing on his toes to reach her.

“Love you,” he whispers in her ear, and they said it the first time a month ago, but it still makes Michelle feel lightheaded and carefree.

**holiday redeeming**

Peter’s arms are wrapped around her waist when he whispers against her lips, “Come over this year for Christmas.”

Michelle pulls away abruptly. “What?” she asks, louder than she meant to.

Peter doesn’t seem bothered at all. He doesn’t even seem to notice it. He just smiles and repeats, “Come over this year for Christmas.”

Michelle laughs humorlessly. “Gabby and I have to make dinner for Noah.”

“Gabby and Noah can come too,” Peter says, brows furrowed like Michelle was supposed to have gathered as much. “Tony’s Italian, so they always have way too much food. Your dad never shows up. My family adores you. And Morgan and Noah would probably get along like a house on fire.”

“Gabby has a girlfriend,” Michelle says, another attempt to stop the conversation from furthering.

Peter scoffs. “Oh, then call the whole thing off,” he responds sarcastically, rolling his eyes. His lips quirk up in a half-grin. “Girlfriend is welcome too.”

Michelle scrunches up her nose in thought. She doesn’t detangle herself from Peter’s hold, but she backs her head up an inch further to look at him fully. “Are you sure? What if they don’t — you know — want me there?”

He plants a kiss on her lips, close-mouthed and warm and a token move on his part. (Whenever Michelle is nervous, he pecks her lips softly. For some reason, it always slows her heartbeat just enough for her to breathe again.) “They do,” he insists. “Tony invited you. I’m just relaying the message.”

“I hate Christmas.”

Peter falters, looks up at her with those wide doe eyes, and blinks. Once. Twice. “Oh,” he says, lips round and forehead creased. “I - I know. But I thought it was because — you know? If - If you don’t, like, _ do _ Christmas, don’t worry about it.”

Michelle shakes her head and cups Peter’s jaw. “No, no, it’s not that.” She sighs, tries not to blush. “I’m just — cynical. You know that. I’m an asshole. And I already kind of hate Christmas. I’m bad at giving presents and telling people I care about them and — I’m bad at Christmas. I _ suck _ at Christmas. I’m not saying no, I’m just trying to — you know — prepare you. Christmas is good for you. I don’t want to ruin it.”

Peter pulls her in for a searing kiss, that’s less passionate and more sweet. It’s gentle, but his breath is hot against her lips, so her stomach still finds a reason to knot. When he tears his lips off of hers, he says, quietly, “You don’t ruin anything, Em. You make everything better.”

* * *

On Christmas, Gabby drives Michelle, Jamie (the girlfriend), and Noah to Tony Stark’s actual fucking cabin, the one Michelle has only been to two times in her entire life, and there are no gifts in the trunk of Gabby’s car. It makes Michelle feel guilty, even though she can’t afford any, even though Peter told her not to bring any, even though Tony Stark himself called her three days ago to say, _ Michelle Jones, you are fantastic but you are fucking poor; don’t bring anything _. Gabby is putting on a brave face for Michelle, but Michelle is the middle child, which means she’s observant and quiet and knows better than anyone when Gabby is afraid.

Noah holds Michelle’s hand in the backseat, just like Jamie is holding Gabby’s. The whole drive over, Noah’s talking animatedly about his favorite Christmas movie, _ Santa Buddies _, and kicking the back of Gabby’s seat. His voice, high pitched and lively, fills the entire car, echoing off the four walls and creeping up Michelle’s throat.

They park behind a car Michelle recognizes as Happy Hogan’s. She wonders if he started joining holidays with the Starks once he and May became an item, or if he’s always been there. Are the Joneses the only ones that will stick out like sore thumbs?

Michelle knows she’s got it better in a lot of ways than other black kids. Her dad is white, so neither Michelle nor Gabby nor Noah are particularly dark-skinned, unlike how their mom was. Being mixed was weirder when Michelle was younger, with people making weird and unintentionally hurtful comments everywhere she went. Still, while she knows being light-skinned has its advantages in comparison, she also knows four black kids rolling up to Tony Stark’s very _ white _ holiday party could likely become an isolating experience.

She doesn’t want it to be. But she wonders — she’s oftentimes too black for her dad’s side of the family. Is she too black for this other family too?

Michelle slides the thought to the back of her mind when Noah taps her shoulder and says, “Is Petey here yet?”

She smiles. He’s been there all day, and she knows it because of the snapchats he’s been sending her of Morgan and him fucking around in Tony’s lab. “Yep,” Michelle says in a soft voice that’s reserved for Noah and Morgan. “How about we go in and say hi to everyone? Peter will introduce us, okay?”

Noah beams and unbuckles his seatbelt, bounding joyfully out of the car as if he were on fire. Quickly, she texts Peter to let him know her family’s arrived, and she grabs her half empty backpack (all that’s in there is some things for Noah, a phone charger — because Michelle has an iPhone and will not get a Stark Phone if only to spite Tony — and the one present she _ did _ bring, which is for Peter). She spins around to the porch when someone clears their throat and shouts, “Hey, beautiful!”

As soon as Michelle knows no little eyes are watching, she tosses up a middle finger to Peter. He laughs, loud and sickeningly contagious, as he clunks down the front steps as graceless and clumsy as a baby deer. He always does this thing where he says hi to Michelle last, so nobody is waiting on him while they say their hello’s. It doesn’t always work, but Michelle still loves those moments where Peter’s full attention is on her, eyes wide and lips quirked upwards into a smile.

He hugs both Gabby and Jamie, because Michelle introduced them to Peter over Thanksgiving break and they fell in love with him. Jamie, who’s pretty much another sister to Michelle with how much time she spends at their place, had sat Michelle down as soon as Peter left and told her all about how much of a catch Peter was. Like Michelle didn’t know.

Then, Peter makes his way to Noah, and yeah — he’s a catch. He kneels down and performs the handshake he and Noah have that is almost as complicated and ridiculous as the one he and Ned do. Noah adores Peter, so he grins, giggling when Peter messes up and teasing him relentlessly for it. At the end, Peter pulls him in for a hug too.

And finally, Peter stands, and steps towards Michelle, who’s leaning on the car behind Noah. He smiles at her, one of those smiles that only Michelle gets to see, and presses his body against hers and her body against the car when he kisses her. Jamie laughs at them in the background and Gabby playfully covers Noah’s eyes, but Michelle doesn’t care at all. When they separate, he jokes to Gabby and Jamie, “You can make fun of us, but this is the last time we get to do that today, so I don’t really care.”

“Oh, what? You don’t want to make out with MJ in front of your entire family?” Gabby asks.

Jamie giggles and says, “What a shame. I’m sure it’s something they’d really like to see. Hey, maybe we should call them all out here-”

“No,” Michelle insists, putting her hands flat on Peter’s chest and shoving him mercilessly away. She knows it didn’t hurt him, and she only managed to make him move because he let her do so. “Neither Tony, May, Pepper, _ or _ Happy is going to stand out here and supervise us while we kiss. Peter will be fine not kissing me for a day. _ Half _ of a day.”

“I don’t know, Em,” Peter teases, offering his hand to Noah. “It’s not even 3:00 yet, and you look really pretty. How can you expect me to wait?”

Michelle smacks the back of his head, and Gabby and Jamie dissolve into laughter again.

* * *

Virtually all of Michelle’s worries fade away as they make their way into the living room. May and Pepper are on the couch, curled up in a pair of matching Spider-Man pajamas, both nursing a glass of red wine. Even from the hallway, Michelle can hear laughter and rowdy conversations wafting in from the kitchen. Peter introduces Gabby, Jamie, and Noah to Pepper and May, who both then pull Michelle in for a weird-but-cute, mom themed hug. Then, he shoos the four of them into the loudest room of the house to say hello to everyone else.

When Michelle walks in, she is more than simply _ surprised. _ In front of Michelle includes, besides Tony and Morgan Stark, who are trying to bake something that looks very, _ very _ wrong: Captain America, War Machine, The Hulk, Falcon, Bucky Barnes, and Thor, the God of Thunder. Peter never warned her that The Avengers would be there, but really — she should have known.

While Gabby, Jamie, and Michelle are a little starstruck, Noah is miraculously unfazed. He doesn’t really recognize any of them without their suits on, so he’s mostly just excited by the prospect of food. Peter clears his throat, and somehow, all attention is immediately drawn to him.

“Uh, guys, this is Gabby, Jamie, Noah, and - and Michelle.” While they all chime their greetings, Peter turns to the four and says, “Um, this is-”

“No need,” Gabby says, smile light. “We know. Nice to meet you all. And thank you, Mr. Stark, for having us.”

Tony groans, but he’s grinning and his eyes are twinkling. “I swear, you stupid polite Gen Z kids, always calling me _ Mr. Stark _. Tony’s fine. And thanks for coming, Joneses and Jamie.” He lifts Morgan off of his shoulders and nudges her towards Noah. “Fly, be free, meet someone your own age for once,” Tony demands. Morgan complies, dragging Noah back out to the living room.

Captain America/Steve Rogers clears his throat. “Nice to meet you kids. Natasha and Happy are around here too, somewhere.”

Tony waves it off and wipes his hands on the apron tied around his waist. It reads, _ Don’t Trust Atoms!!! (They make up everything!) _. Michelle remembers when Peter bought that for him. “I’m sure they’ll show up,” he says. “I think she’s trying to upgrade his bodyguarding techniques. Maybe I should just hire Nat instead.”

Peter scoffs. “Like she would agree to being around you that much. You’re lucky she’s even here today with how much you pissed her off last week.”

At the same time Tony says, “Oh, hush, you,” Gabby asks, “What did he do?”

Peter grins deviously and the entire kitchen (save for Michelle, Gabby, and Jamie, who don’t get the joke, and Tony, who is groaning and buckling over to bury his face into the marble counter) breaks out into laughter. “Sometimes, Clint and Tony have these stupid prank wars. When Tasha gets in the middle of it, it’s less of a war and more of an absolute genocide. She is _ ruthless _, and last week, Tony dyed all of her clothes green.”

Michelle barks out a laugh. “Well, what’d she do?”

“Nothing,” Tony whines. “That’s the problem.”

“Stark is afraid that Natasha will retaliate when it is least expected,” Thor explains, voice loud and booming, startling Michelle.

“Which she absolutely will do,” a voice says from behind them. Michelle spins around and blinks at the redheaded woman, the same height as Peter, leaning up against the door frame. “Hi. Natasha.”

“Gabby, Jamie, and Michelle,” Peter responds, pointing at them as if it were already a habit.

“Cool,” Natasha says. “Gabby, Jamie, let me introduce you to Happy. I’ll bug Michelle later.”

* * *

Michelle and Peter take a seat at the counter, knees touching and elbows brushing. Michelle, after a beat of hesitation, leans over and squishes her body up against Peter’s while he plays _ Pokemon Go _. She figures, everyone will make fun of Michelle and Peter no matter what they do. Peter doesn’t seem to mind though, and drops his head on her shoulder.

“PDA,” Tony scolds and flicks water at Peter. “You’re a baby. Stop it.”

Peter rolls his eyes and doesn’t even pretend to be annoyed. “When Steve was my age, he and Bucky were-”

“Peter!” Bucky squeaks in shock. “Whatever you’re going to say, stop it.”

“I was gonna say training for their enlistment,” Peter lies easily, fluttering his eyelashes.

Michelle scoffs and smacks the back of his arm. “No you weren’t, you loser. Stop lying.”

She tries to hide the pride and hope that swell in her chest when everyone laughs, cheering her on, shaking their fists playfully at Peter too. _ It’s just one Christmas, _ she reminds herself. _ Not your new home. _

* * *

At dinner, Tony and Peter bicker as loudly and carelessly as they always do. It starts with Peter calling him an old man, and it only gets worse from there. Somewhere along the way, Tony decides Peter is an ungrateful brat, and tells him, “I would just like to remind you, while you’re snarking away at me, that I _ literally _ solved time travel for _ you _. Not even Steven Grant Rogers, Captain America himself, could convince me to do it. It was all you. And yet, you’re still an asshole.”

Peter scoffs, stuffing _ cappelletti reggiani _ into his mouth, although his eyes are bright. “It’s not like I asked you to do it.”

Tony huffs an undignified gasp. Everyone around them groans in part amusement and part genuine frustration. “You were _ dead _!” Tony squawks. People flinch at the screeching, but Michelle just thinks it’s funny. “No, you know what? You’re right.” Tony stands, slamming his hand on the table for dramatic effect. “Let me just go and put you back, then.”

Peter laughs and flings a pasta noodle at Tony, hitting him on the cheek. “Go ahead. Have fun finding a new babysitter.”

“There’s literally 3 other teenagers here,” May comments, gesturing to Gabby, Jamie, and Michelle. “And, like, ten Avengers. I’m sure Tony knows where to find a babysitter. You can be replaced.”

May has always kept Peter down to earth. It’s a very humbling experience for him, Michelle’s sure — getting roasted by his dad-thing _ and _his mom-thing in one sitting. He pouts, filling his mouth with more food while huffing angrily through his nose.

They don’t do gifts at all. Peter explains there’s a lot of people, a lot more than anyone wants to buy gifts for, so they never open gifts on Christmas — always the day after or before. Well, at least, that’s what Peter tells Michelle, but she doesn’t understand why they wouldn’t have mentioned that before when trying to convince the Joneses not to bring gifts. Michelle chooses not to think about it too much.

After dinner, when Tony puts on a movie and everyone piles up in the living room space, Peter, with his arm wrapped around Michelle’s shoulder, leans down and whispers into her ear, “Can I show you something?” She swallows — more of a gulp, really — and nods furiously. He stands, grabs her hand, pulling her up to stand and leading the way.

Michelle doesn’t give a fuck about where Peter is taking her. He could be taking her to the basement where he keeps dead bodies, or his room of skin-lamps, or a literal sex dungeon, and all Michelle can even think about is how warm she is where their skin touches, lighting up her nerves like electricity, and how good Christmas dinner was for the first time since her mom died, and how perfectly her hand seems to fit in his. Peter walks fast, too, like he’s anxious to get wherever they’re going. It makes Michelle a little bit anxious too.

Peter rounds the corner and drags her into a room whose door had been left ajar. He closes it behind them with his foot, and for a second, Michelle’s stomach twists, but he looks up at her and smiles. She smiles back at him, one of those grins she only lets Peter see, and pivots slowly to look around the room. It’s Peter’s bedroom, presumably, if the Star Wars duvet and obscure Spider-Man merchandise are anything to go off of. There’s a snow globe on the windowsill, looking adorably like the scene outside, and on the wall adjacent to the door hangs a collection of drawings all signed with crayon lettering that reads _ Morgan _.

“What are you showing me?” Michelle asks, a little bit nervous. Being in a boy’s room, _ alone _, has plenty of implications. She wonders if anyone’s noticed that they’re gone.

Peter lets go of her hand and steps towards a dresser on the other side of the room, only to pause and gesture towards her. “Over here,” he says, and she follows without question.

Michelle stands behind him, leaving a foot or so of space between them, while Peter rummages through the top drawer. He huffs a whisper of success and spins around, quickly hiding whatever it is that he’s holding behind his back before Michelle can see. “Okay,” he says, and then starts again with nerves hidden behind a half-assed chuckle, “Don’t laugh at me.” Michelle bites down a grin.

“I won’t,” she promises. “I won’t.”

Peter rolls his eyes, because they both know she’s wrong. “You probably will,” he responds, lips upturned like he’s trying not to smile but simply can’t help it. “But that’s okay. I’ll just-” He clears his throat, and breathes deeply through his nose, and then more shallowly out his mouth. “I got you a gift. I know I told you not to bring anyone anything, and I meant it, but — you know — you’re my girlfriend and I love you, so I got you something anyway.”

Michelle giggles lightly and tells him, “It’s okay. I got you something too.”

Peter smiles, crooked and surprised, like he can’t believe it. “Yeah?” he asks. She nods, smiling just the same at him. “Cool. Um. Good. But let me give you mine first.”

He holds out a small box in front of him, no larger than a shoebox, and gestures for her to take it. She does so, however gingerly, and opts to leave it shut. “It’s — uh — I know you love — um — like, old books, and like, feminist literature? So, I — um — ugh. Just open it.”

Michelle’s lips soften into an amused smile and she nods, picking at the line where the two ends of the snowflake wrapping paper meet. Underneath the poorly-executed paper is a cardboard box. She very carefully lifts the lid, and comes to find, sitting lonesome in the box, a used copy of _ Jane Eyre. _

She blinks. Looks up at Peter with her face scrunched in that _ tell me more _ kind of way. He clears his throat and fiddles with his fingers, looking down at the ground instead of her eyes. “It’s from some vintage store May and I found walking around a few days ago. I didn’t know what to get you, I was gonna go for like, a necklace — like in Europe — but we took a wrong turn and — I don’t know. It seemed very…” Peter falters for a second, looks up, and smiles. He shrugs. “Very you. It’s from 1930. It’s kind of faded, and there are like, water stains near like, the end of the book, apparently, but it’s still in pretty good condition. I think.”

Michelle puts a hand on the back of his neck and drags him in for a tight kiss, if only to stop Peter from rambling any longer. The kiss is fierce, says all the things Michelle sucks at putting into words, and when she pulls away, Peter’s eyes look a little bit glazed over. Michelle thinks to herself with pride, _ I do that to him _. “Thank you,” she says, sincere and impossibly in love. “It’s perfect.”

Without another word, she pulls her backpack in front of her, left arm still looped through the strap. She unzips it and pulls out the gift she got for Peter, neither wrapped nor tied with a bow. Handing it to him, she can see his smile sprout into a blinding grin. She looks down at the gift immediately. It’s a red sweater with Peter’s name stitched across the front in thick blue letters, sort of like the Weasleys’ sweaters in Harry Potter. “Noah, Gabby and I worked on it together. Our mom used to make us them. We still have them, even though they don’t — you know — fit. Anymore. But you’re kind of — um — our family too. So we wanted you to have one.”

“All of you?”

“Mostly me,” Michelle admits, a blush rising to her cheeks. “Noah, too. He’s very passionate about the Peter-Noah bromance.”

It takes a while for her to look up from the sweater as Peter turns it around in his hands, feeling it. His voice is quiet, even bashful when he points out, “It’s the good fabric.” Immediately, Michelle darts up to catch his eyes, and she’s furiously surprised by how watery they are. She simply nods. (She not only remembered that some materials and fabrics made Peter itch his spider-mutated skin until it was raw, but she also went out of her way to find and purchase the ones that didn’t do it for the sweater. Now, seeing it in Peter’s hands, how perfectly the red looked against his complexion and the blue contrasted his eyes, Michelle was eternally grateful for her past-self’s determination.)

“Thank you,” Peter says, choked up like his heart is in his mouth. He smiles anyway, and drags Michelle down for one of those kisses that shake her world until she doesn’t recognize one without Peter anymore; it’s life-changing, law-bending, unbreaking, and perfect. There’s nothing Michelle loves more than the feeling of Peter breathing his _ I love you _ down her throat.

* * *

Later, when their lips finally tear apart and the moment is lighter than before, Michelle makes a joke like, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me _ the _ Natasha Romanoff was coming tonight. You know how I feel about that woman.”

Peter laughs and says, “Maybe that’s why I didn’t tell you. Don’t know what I’d do without you.”

The old Michelle, lonely and detached and mean, might have scowled at that, called Peter out for being too possessive. This Michelle, who is soft and warm-blooded and so deeply, horribly in love with Peter, doesn’t seem to mind at all. This Michelle decides she can still be angry, still be black, still be loud and fearless and still make change, all the while being a total sap, in love with some boy who sometimes gets pen ink from his notes on his face and broken bones from neighborhood bullies and always, _ always _ wants to save the world.

**cheese balling**

When Peter shyly admits to her, over the phone in the latest hours of the night (or earliest of the morning), that he loves Valentine’s Day, Michelle makes it a mission to love it too.

It’s capitalist bullshit. It makes no sense: none of the romance or pink hearts or whatever has literally _ anything _ to do with the actual Saint Valentine, who was just some priest dude back during the Roman Empire; it didn’t even become a romantic/couple-y holiday until the 14th century, literal centuries after the holiday was officialized (back in 269 AD); more than 90% of the holiday is superficial at best and rooted in poor, attention-seeking habits.

But Peter loves Valentine’s Day. Ben and May used to go all out. Got married on Valentine’s Day. And engaged on one. And started dating on one. It was their holiday, right up until Ben died, and then it fizzled out of Peter’s life. Now, May and Happy are, for lack of a better word, _ happy _ together, but it’s hard for May to even _ like _ Valentine’s Day, let alone celebrate it. But Peter tells Michelle he misses it, misses the flowers and unabashed declarations of love and all the touchy-feely, lovey-dovey shit that he’d grown so used to seeing.

So Michelle sighs, frowns at herself in the mirror, and gets to work.

* * *

On Valentine’s Day, Michelle and Peter’s very first one together, Michelle calls Peter first thing in the morning and informs him she will be walking him to school so he should be ready early if he wants to get a coffee. Peter laughs on the phone, still groggy from sleep, and barely says anything beyond, _ “Okay,” _ and, _ “I love you.” _ The girly, lovesick part of Michelle, which she so often pushes down, fantasizes for a second about that being the first thing Peter says to her in the morning, every morning, from the comfort of the bed they share and into the apartment they live in together.

She pays for his coffee. It’s Valentine’s Day, and he normally would insist on paying and she would normally give up or just compromise and pay for her own drink, but this time, he backs down when she pokes the skin beneath his rib cage and tells him, “Just let me have this one, asshole.”

They walk to school, holding their coffees — an oat milk honey latte for Peter, because he is a VSCO girl in disguise, and a dark chocolate mocha for Michelle — and each other’s hands to stay warm.

First, they go to Peter’s locker, because Michelle has everything she needs _ and _ because she wants to lean up against the locker besides Peter’s and look him up and down like she’s the love interest and he’s the main character in some absurdly average high school romance movie. (He laughs about it, and even though he’s blushing beet red all over, he pretends not to be flustered by it.) Before they go anywhere else, she kisses him, hand on his waist tighter than usual and maybe there’s more tongue than Michelle would normally go for but she indulges herself and tells herself, _ It’s for Peter _ . He sighs into the kiss, because he really is a main character from some stupid movie like _ To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before _ (which is better than Michelle cares to admit) or _ Tall Girl _ (which is bad and Michelle knows she doesn’t need to get into it any further than that).

Then, she takes him to his class — AP English Language and Composition — and presses to his cheek a kiss goodbye. In the split seconds before Michelle walks away and after Peter enters the classroom, Michelle can hear Ned teasing Peter, “Happy Valentine’s Day, _ Trophy Husband. _”

She can also hear Peter saying, “At least I’m _ someone’s _ Trophy Husband, Sir Single-Lot.”

“Low blow,” Ned responds, but he’s laughing too, and then, just as Michelle takes her first step towards her own class, Ned adds, “You really love her, huh?”

Michelle falters and pauses her step. Peter hums his agreement. “I really, _ really _ do.”

And that only makes Michelle want to cheese-ball harder.

* * *

Michelle sends a candy-gram to Peter’s fourth period class, the one right before lunch. When he comes out with a single rose and a small jar of gummy worms, he tries to narrow his eyes and glare, but it doesn’t work; his lips are turned up in a smile. He kisses her, punches her playfully on the forearm, then kisses her again.

She also picks him up after class at the end of the school day and walks him to Happy’s car. She nods at Happy dispassionately and kisses Peter with the sort of fierceness she’s embarrassed to show even him. But it’s Valentine’s Day, she tells herself, it’s Peter’s day, so she lets herself press her lips to his more untamed and ardent than ever.

He calls her that night. His voice is soft and a little bit embarrassed. “Thank you for today,” he sighs, making Michelle’s stomach feel all gooey and warm. “I love you. A lot. You didn’t have to do that. I know you hate Valentine’s Day. So thank you.”

He can’t see her smile, nobody can, so she lets herself smile brighter than a thousand suns. Like how Peter always smiles at her. “Well, I know you like it, so.” She clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth nervously. “Wanted to make you happy, I guess.”

“You do, Michelle,” he says. “You always do.”

**birthday celebrating (part 2)**

Peter’s birthday was fun, _ sure _ , but that doesn’t mean Michelle is going to suddenly love birthdays. It actually means she’s going to hate her _ own _ more than ever. There’s so many expectations to live up to now if she plans it herself, and so much trust to endow upon one person if she lets them do it.

Actually, she did plan it herself. Her birthday fell on a Friday, so Peter, Ned, Flash, Cindy, Susan, Abe, Zoha, and Brad were all going to join Michelle in watching a midnight showing of the new _ Black Canary _ movie. After, they’d spend the night at her place, since her dad was fuck-knows-where.

But then, Peter texts her a week before and says, _ I wanna do your birthday this year. Please? _

And how on earth is Michelle supposed to say no?

She hands the reins over to him and he promises he’ll make it a good one for her. He says, “I know you better than anyone,” outside of their shared study hall class. “Just trust me.”

Michelle does. Of course she does. If it were anyone else, she’d toss something at their face and refuse, but it’s Peter, her most favorite person in the entire world, so she agrees easily.

Then Friday comes, April 14th, and she doesn’t know what to expect, really. She knows Peter, realistically, knows exactly what she enjoys, but she’s nervous anyway. What if he takes her to a party? What if there’s a million people and nobody that she knows and everybody is drinking? What if he doesn’t know her as well as they all thought he did?

Except Ned picks her up, Peter in the backseat and Cindy in the front, and Peter doesn’t say a word about the plan until they park outside of a building labelled _ Beat The Room _ in blue curvy letters. He actually doesn’t talk about the rest of the night either, opting to only say, “Well, I know you like escape rooms.”

It’s a room called _ The Skull Witch _ and claims to be their scariest one. Michelle thinks it’s _ got _ to be bullshit, it’s a fucking _ witch story _, for heaven’s sake, it can’t be scary. But then she gets there, locked in a room with Ned, Cindy, Peter, and Flash, who had met them there, and she realizes it’s actually terrifying and she’s been a wimp, scaredy-cat, crybaby, etcetera all along.

They manage to make it out of the room, somehow. Peter gets really into it and it’s actually kind of hot to see him using his token intelligence that she fell in love with long ago. At school, he’s _ nerdy; _ with Spider-Man, he’s _cool; _ with his family and friends, he’s _ sweet; _ but here, in a life-sized puzzle room with fake demons and weird bells that have to chime in a certain order and doors that swing wide open at random, he’s a goddamn genius. Michelle has always known, logically, he must be one; he invented his own web solution for Spider-Man, ran the robotics club in freshman year (and took it up again for senior year, with the prompting of his friend Harley Keener), and is literally _ Tony Stark’s personal intern _, for heaven’s sake. Peter is smart.

Michelle knows that Peter is nerdy, cool, sweet, smart, whatever — but he’s also caring and clever and the best thing that’s ever happened to her, so really, Michelle is mostly just impressed she managed to pay attention to the puzzles at hand and not the way Peter’s back muscles flexed when he tried to focus on a clue in front of him.

There’s also amazing things besides Peter during their hour in the escape room. Cindy blows kisses at the camera every time the operator guy gives them a hint, whether it’s helpful or not. Flash gets into a hilarious and absurdly heated argument with Ned about a symbol that ultimately neither of them were right about. Ned drops every clue at least twice and cries out _ “Sorry!” _ each time.

And then they escape. It’s not as life-changing and crazy as Michelle had expected it to be, but that could be because it’s the fourth room she’s ‘escaped’ and they all feel the same now. (Still a high, still amazing, but just less… unusual.)

They take pictures out by the wall that reads the room name in a bleeding white font. Michelle lets herself be pushed into the middle of her friends with a sign that says _ I did all the work _ and a deadpan expression. To her right is Cindy and Ned, who both have collected semi-irrelevant props and are holding them over their heads. On the other end of the photo, there is Flash, wearing three top hats stacked on top of each other. Then, Peter stands next to her, left arm wrapped around her waist and right arm throwing up a peace sign. When Michelle views the photo later, as they’re driving away, she sees that Peter managed to stare at her for all three of them with the softest damn look on his perfect, stupid face.

There are some other birthday things too. They have a little scavenger hunt at the mall, set up by Peter, with the help of Susan. That’s where Brad, Susan, Abe, and Zoha meet them. They eat at Five Guys, because it’s Peter and Michelle’s favorite burger place. They go back to Michelle’s house for a little while, and she lets them sing to her and light candles for her to blow out. The movie ends up being good, _ really fucking good _, but the highlight of her night appears to be the moments after the movie when everyone is a little bit delirious and sleep deprived so Zoha is filming Flash, Ned, Abe, Peter, Cindy, and Brad competing in a game of ass-slaps while Susan and Michelle just watch and try not to pee their pants from laughing so hard.

(The game, by the way, is so stupid Michelle doesn’t even want to name it beyond ass-slaps. You slap one’s ass, and if you shout _ clean _ , they cannot ass-slap you back for the next five minutes. If they unjustly ass-slap you, you may choose between punching them in the gut, the ‘titties’ (Flash’s word choice), or the crotch. It’s important to note that shouting _ clean _ only protects you from the person you ass-slapped, and that the person you ass-slapped can ass-slap someone else, who can then ass-slap you. It’s dumb, it’s the worst game anyone ever came up with, and there’s no winner, only bright red handmarks on everyone involved’s buttcheeks.)

It’s the best birthday Michelle has ever had and for the first time in her life, she’s excited to see what the next one brings.

**high school graduating**

Graduation day, June 8th, marks their one year anniversary.

Sort of. It marks the first day they kissed, and they weren’t officially _ boyfriend and girlfriend _ for another full week, when they went to a drive-in showing of _ The Brain Eaters _. But Michelle likes to count June 8th too, because they kissed three times and Peter almost died, so it feels kind of important. And it’s fitting, isn’t it, that the day they say goodbye to one chapter in their lives is the same day they, once upon a time, opened the door for a new one?

Back in March, they decided on MIT and Harvard. It’s Peter’s dream to go to MIT, just like it’s Michelle’s to go to Harvard, and it’s always been, so when Michelle was offered a full ride (mysteriously, under a foundation that has direct ties with Stark Industries) and Peter decided that perhaps Cambridge, MA could use a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, they enrolled as college students for the 2025 fall semester. Michelle’s roommate is named Lacie, and she has long blonde hair and is from Northern California, somewhere near Sonoma. Peter’s roommate is Ned.

June 8th starts abnormally normal.

Michelle had woken up expecting the world to be stained pink or on fire or painted in shades of blue. She expected things to be different, unrecognizable — but really, it’s all the same. She turns over on her side, clicks her phone screen on and checks the time. _ 8:32 AM _. Then, she opens her phone up and swipes down on the menu bar to look at her notifications. The first one she sees and the only she cares about yet is a voicemail from Peter.

“Hey,” he says quietly in the recording, and Michelle wants to respond. She bites her tongue. “I know we’re seeing each other today for like, the entire day, but I love you. That’s all. Happy first kiss anniversary. And I love you. And I’ll see you later.”

The call is from an hour ago. Michelle knows she could call him back, and she would, but she’s an adult and technically a college student so she, instead, rolls out of bed, brushes her teeth, and texts Peter around 8:45 that she’s on her way over.

She doesn’t think about anything — literally, _ anything _ other than _ PeterPeterPeter _ — until he swings the door open, shirtless and smiling, and suddenly she’s thinking about teeth and the six pack of abs Peter is too shy to show off and how nice it might feel to press their bodies together without the layers of fabric in between.

Michelle didn’t wake up _ intentionally _ horny; she woke up thinking she would be all giddy and nervous with excitement and academic excellence, and instead, her stomach is swooping low and hot and her toes are curling and she’s thinking, _ I’m 18, Peter’s 18, and May spends every Thursday night and Friday morning at Happy’s place _.

Maybe she’s a bad person. She doesn’t give a shit, and pulls Peter into a searing kiss.

It’s over too quickly. “What was that for?” Peter pulls away, laughing a little breathlessly.

Michelle blushes and pushes him inside, closing the door behind her. “You’re _ shirtless _,” she hisses, and Peter laughs some more. Michelle muscles through it and ignores him in favor of explaining more. “You’re shirtless, and we graduated high schools as a couple of virgins, and I’m thinking — maybe let’s not go to college like that?”

“Virginity is a social construct,” Peter says dumbly, as if by instinct. Then he blinks. “Wait, you want to — right now?”

Michelle rolls her eyes. Her hand wraps around the back of his neck, fingers tangled in the short curls that grow at the base of his skull, and she kisses him again. Peter responds as enthusiastically as ever with a hum against her lips and arms pressing their stomachs together. He squats down a little, moves his hands to the backs of her thighs, and lifts her, which is just about the hottest thing Michelle has ever seen him do (besides that one time they went to the Women’s March and he got into a really heated argument with some of the counter-protesters, prompting him to then return as Spider-Man and argue with them some more). She crosses her ankles together and digs her heel into the small of his back until his hips buck up into hers and — _ wow _ , that feels _ good? _

Peter leads them blindly into his bedroom without any mistakes, thanks to his spidey-sense. Michelle squirms in his tight hold, mostly just to make sure he won’t drop her, and she revels in the firm press of his biceps against her back when he pulls her in closer. He drops her unceremoniously onto his bed, and she opens her eyes, blinking in her surroundings. Peter’s room is as messy as ever. She loves that about him. She loves everything about him.

Peter straddles her, knees on either side of her thighs, caging her in, and kisses her again. Their mouths move against each other feverishly, until Michelle pulls away half an inch for Peter to attach his lips to her neck and her to say, “You are a virgin, right? Not that it matters. Just curious.”

He giggles in a breathy and clearly debauched way. “Yeah,” he says, somewhere between panting and open-mouthed breathing. “Hey. I wanna — wanna see you.”

Michelle pauses and blinks up at him curiously. It’s not really that she’s insecure, even though she kind of is, but it’s more that she’s never been naked in front of anyone except her mom like, a decade ago, so it feels really weird to be _ asked _ to be naked. They’d done other things: made out, dry humped, hand jobs (on one memorable occasion), whatever. But never naked. Michelle only _ kind of _ knows what a penis looks like; like, she knows _ realistically _, but she’s never seen one up close, and especially not Peter’s, and she wonders if Peter knows what the clitoris even is. Or how to find it. Or where it’s located.

But Peter falters when he sees her hesitation. “You don’t have to,” he says quickly. “Whatever you want. Anything.”

She thinks back to the first day she met Peter. It was back in 9th grade, at freshman orientation, and he was dorky; he wore glasses and had acne and exercise-induced asthma until all of a sudden, two months later, mid-October, he buffed out and _‘outgrew’_ his inhaler and_ ‘overcame’_ his shellfish allergy and_ ‘started to wear contacts’_. Everyone thought it meant he was finally hitting puberty. Michelle, back then, thought the same. Then, he started skipping out on school functions, missing class activities, dropping out of his extracurriculars, and Michelle knew there was something more to it.

And she thinks about how it felt kissing Peter for the first time, how he’s always been everything to her, how he lives three inches deep under her skin and leaves a mark like scar tissue, how much she wished she would’ve kissed him on Charles Bridge just like she’s wishing right now to bring their bodies close together until not even an inch of space remains. They’ve grown together, they’re going to college together and they spent Christmas together and they’ve snuck out together and they fell in love, together, and Michelle’s only regret is that she didn’t plan for any of this to happen. Although, if she had, they probably would have made it here very differently. Maybe they wouldn’t have made it there at all.

Still, Michelle thinks — has always thought — that they would _ always _ make it here, together. In every universe, every lifetime or alternate reality or whatever, Peter and Michelle would make it here — wherever _ here _ is. Sometimes, it feels like she’ll blink and the world will pass her by and in the dust, only Peter will remain. She thinks about the Washington Monument, how Peter saved them and none of them knew it; Homecoming, the Tower Bridge — Peter, time and time again, lets himself be seen as a boy who wants to save the world. And Michelle knows, better than anyone, that Peter is more than that; he’s selfish and sometimes grumpy and oftentimes stubborn, impulsive, and restless, but all of that makes Peter more _ Peter _ than anyone else could ever be.

And Michelle loves Peter. Loves that he is who she will always end up with. He’s brave, and Michelle doesn’t always feel as brave as him, but there, in that moment, she lets herself wallow in the fear. Fear is such an ugly thing. It tastes like metal, so she swallows it down until she can only taste Peter. It’s always only ever been Peter.

“I want everything,” she answers, unafraid. “I trust you.”


	2. interlude

hey guys! this is not an update. sorry for playing with your feelings if you expected it to be.

i know that fanfiction is supposed to be a safe place, away from the horrible reality that we live in. i know. you can skip this chapter if you want. i can't stop you. and while i don't have much of a platform on ao3 - i'm by no means a popular author, but my fics do moderately well - i do know someone, somewhere, is going to read this. and hopefully, i can educate you on something i really, really care about in the aftermath of something that really pissed me off.

so _somebody_ posted some shady shit today and i wanna take this as an opportunity to remind **non-black people** of some key things.

1\. Black lives matter. always. unconditionally. in every city, state, country, you live in. in every language you speak. in every circumstance.** Black lives matter.**

2\. believing that Black lives matter doesn't mean shit if you're not having all the provocative conversations you can have. i'm not saying pick a fight with your abusive parents, obviously, but every day you should take every opportunity possible to educate someone. tweet something. post on instagram. have a tough conversation with someone that said something hurtful. i know it's hard to sit your mom down and tell her it's fucked up when she says blue lives matter, but imagine how the world feels for Black people. 

3\. educate yourself. the movement is not over until Black people are safe. sign a petition, go to a protest, donate to a gofundme, do something, anything. 

* * *

if you're like me, youtube is your favorite resource for education. here are some great informative and helpful videos.

_ **LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER** _

**Ferguson, MO, and Police Militarization** <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUdHIatS36A>

**Police Accountability ** <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaD84DTGULo>

**Police ** <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf4cea5oObY>

_ **JADA JONES** _

**want to be educated? this is the video for you...** <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKGkXoF60Ik>

** _THE DAILY SHOW WITH TREVOR NOAH_ **

**America Protests Police Brutality and Systemic Racism ** <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YknhztcrURY>

_ **PATRIOT ACT WITH HASAN** _ ** MINHAJ**

**We Cannot Stay Silent About George Floyd ** <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_FE78X-qdY>

_ **TEDX TALKS ** _

**Eliminating Microaggressions: The Next Level of Inclusion (Tiffany Alvoid)** <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPqVit6TJjw>

**50 years of racism - why silence isn't the answer (James A. White Sr.) ** <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9DDE7NV1Nw>

_ **ROB BLISS** _

**Holding A Black Lives Matter Sign in America's Most Racist Town** <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltmlvk9GAto>

and in my opinion, the most heart wrenching one:

_ **GREAT BIG STORY** _

**Black Lives Matter Protests Around the World** <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Vl4I0weXPU>

* * *

hopefully that moved you. if it didn't, i have nothing to say to you. if it did, here are some ways you can help.

<https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/>

> <https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/#petitions>
> 
> <https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/#donate>
> 
> <https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/#text>

[https://blacklivesmatter.com/resources/](https://blacklivesmatter.com/resources/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=a1ac1fa6f7f8b0a72a857a03f3b8105739500096-1599100124-0-AZTNFo8Cfx0fa3opjRHvoVtq4jxSoPuD_ADm5PUPui_-dUNRaSRV0zEdUs3Htyia-cTVITPP_CGmJaxRqn3TJnOaPUe8o2-L6jO406RTGIKG5CzXCn9WjEVXn1o_iz_93rMGLMXz2__VRpC0G7DfJiJHRILzQF3oUk2x3RkjWSV66NUnzfZ3bWJzMxyhh9E5R2IuQbPFWB2wI5mGP4YMcY8u4FDAWxTejgAYiUICsahlo5OcgAMYw91nOoZpz6to4Cv7eh_nfVehfzdhZKiG0AzF8sIXcY0UKETdaU-LstacqHmA4qIvJd1VFS_-7C6kRXtwiOVnOx6OFWwZh7JAtaMr-kMDv3DAknireXggns_5)

<https://www.manrepeller.com/2020/06/black-lives-matter-resources.html>

<https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1yxj0kSC2-LzINUlfNMEV_Qi-7ZtWCTLSua3Z-9XFNqA/mobilebasic>

* * *

and here are the names you cannot forget.

<https://sayevery.name/>

* * *

the world is a big scary place, but it's even scarier when you're at risk of being murdered with no justice for the color of your skin. now is not the time to stay silent. if you are not Black, you are obligated to stand up for the Black community. your whiteness could save somebody's life.

> When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would always say to me, _Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping._
> 
> \- Fred Rogers

now is the time for you to be a helper.

change starts with us.

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be like thru the years (senior year, college years, and post college) but then i fell in love with this “first chapter” and it became the entire fic LMFAO.. maybe i'll continue this if people like the format/style :D
> 
> just some things for u 2 know: brad is bi bc im silly and inconsistent but a good improvisor, flash is gay, michelle’s birthday Thing is entirely based off of my bday but instead of black canary we saw far from home, this ignores canon entirely because i! don’t! give! a! fuck! tbh the only canon this follows is 5 years passed w/ the snap thing so it’s set in 2024/2025 (summer of 2023- the blip, everyone comes back; summer of 2024- after junior year round two and far from home; summer of 2025- when peter and mj and everyone else graduate from high school)
> 
> check out my tumblr (shazameroos.tumblr.com) and also my other fics pls!! and PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT THEY MAKE ME SO HAPPY (i'm framing some of them for my room lol)


End file.
